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GoAnimate
GoAnimate '''(sometimes stylized as '''Go!Animate) is a cloud-based platform for creating and distributing animated videos. It allows users to develop both narrative videos, in which characters speak with lip-sync and move around, and video presentations, in which a voice-over narrator speaks over images and props, which may also move around. The service is provided on a freemium basis to consumers, and has multiple subscription levels available for businesses. GoAnimate provides users with drag-and-drop tools that the company's website indicates can be used to access thousands of character models, backdrops, and other assets to create scenario-based videos - like political videos depicted during the 2012 US presidential campaign. The platform offers text-to-speech character voices with customizable environments. It is also commonly known for grounded videos. GoAnimate is written in ActionScript3, using Adobe Flash. History GoAnimate was founded in 2007 by Alvin Hung. It originated from Hung’s desire to create an animated story for his wife, evolving to an animated tool. Go!Animate is a founding member of YouTube creation tool partner program, launched in 2009. In 2012, eMarketer projected that video would be the fastest-growing online ad format in 2012, with spending to increase nearly 55 percent over 2011. Business2community.com reports that the popularity of video as a medium to communicate information results from its ability to effectively tell stories, spread messages and encourage action. It notes that bloggers who may not be skilled writers are turning to video as well. In September 2013, GoAnimate relaunched with a new look, new features, and the removal of GoBucks and GoPoints. The Video Creator was renovated in October 2013, and the Character Creator was revamped in late November 2013. In January 2015, GoAnimate relaunched with a new layout, and the removal of the GoPlus subscription. Criticism On September 15, 2014, DomoAnimate, the site powered by the discontinued "make your own website" option of GoAnimate, shut down. Users are now redirected to GoAnimate4Schools when they search for DomoAnimate. That same day, GoAnimate removed private messaging and commenting abilities to basic users, in hopes of transitioning from a social media site into a full video maker. This update received negative reactions from users & subscribers, who feared that GoAnimate might shut down because most of the site has been powered by basic users and GoPlus users. GoAnimate said that they might fix this update sometime in 2015, but that has not yet been confirmed. On November 18, 2014, GoAnimate discontinued their older forums, and their Help Center's Community Forums went live. GoAnimate also confirmed that they were discontinuing the ability to sign up for a free account in early December, and that they would be adding a free trial option. That has been confirmed, however the date pushed back to November 26, 2014. They also announced that they would be eliminating all basic accounts by November 25, 2015. In January 2015, GoAnimate removed the option of upgrading to the GoPlus subscription, due to lack of popularity during fall of 2014, and the growing subscription base. On March 25, 2015, GoAnimate removed the Dashboard due to customer feedback. They also said they will replace it with a new data feed system sometime in 2015. Themes In GoAnimate, there are quite a few themes that were incorporated into the Video Makers. The assets are as follows: Comedy World: '''A particularly popular theme featuring characters with designs reminiscent to those of Family Guy, Cleveland Show, and American Dad characters. '''Lil' Peepz: '''Arguably the most popular theme in GoAnimate. Features non-limb characters accompanied with several animations and poses. Here is GoAnimate's description on said theme: "Our themes are carefully produced sets of matching assets, such as characters, actions, backgrounds, props and scene starters - each with a unique visual style. Our popular theme, Lil' Peepz, offers a wide selection of actions and assets across numerous occupations and activities - including falling in love, playing music, and police work - with more being added all the time." '''Business Friendly: '''This new theme is exclusive to users who subscribe to a business account (whether they operate a local/commercial business or if a certain individual has enough money to buy one). This theme includes the most animations/poses out of any character from other themes. '''Space Peepz: '''Features Space-themed Lil' Peepz characters. '''Chibi Peepz: '''This asset features Japanese Chibi-style Lil' Peepz characters including new sets of poses (consisting of Ninja and Spellcaster). '''Chibi Ninjas: '''This asset includes ninja-style Chibi Peepz characters. Perfect addition for any Ninja-themed videos/animations. '''Jungle Warfare: '''Same as Lil' Peepz (including Warfare-style Lil' Peepz characters). '''White Houzers (formerly called US Election 2012): '''A theme featuring caricatures of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and other Democrats and Republicans exclusively released in the United States to coincide with the US 2012 Election. '''Anime: '''This theme consists of realistic anime humans including quite a few animations ranging from daily life to combat and emotions. '''Ninja Anime: '''Same as anime, featuring Anime characters in Ninja/Samurai clothes. '''Space Citizens: '''This Sci-Fi theme features realistic humans including two sets of poses; Daily Life and Sci-Fi. '''Lil' Pets: '''This asset features anthromorphic animals including Lil' Peepz animations and poses. '''Stick Figures: '''This unique and popular asset includes a wide array of headgear and quite a few of default Stick figures. Animations/Poses range from Daily Life to Fighting. '''Cartoon Classics: '''This was presumably GoAnimate's first asset featuring characters with swapable heads and headgear (which could also be used on Comedy World and Lil' Peepz characters). '''Holiday & Seasonal: '''This theme features festive/holiday Cartoon Classics characters including Santa Claus, a snowman, a reindeer, a boy in winter apparel, and an elf. '''Monster Mayhem: '''A theme featuring Cartoon Classics monsters ranging from Frankenstein and Dracula to Zombies, Ghosts, and witches. Discontinued Licensed Themes '''Underdog: '''This theme featured Underdog characters (including himself), backgrounds, and props. The theme was inconveniently discontinued in 2012 (possibly to make way for the White Houzers theme). '''It's Happy Bunny: '''A discontinued theme featuring anthromorphic rabbits. '''Sesame Street: '''As the name implies, this theme featured Sesame Steet characters cush as Elmo, Grover, Oscar, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Bert, and others. '''Street Fighter: '''This discontinued theme featured a wide selection of characters from Capcom's Street Fighter franchise. '''Star Trek: '''This featured a wide array of authentic Star Trek based props, backgrounds, and characters. '''Star Wars: '''It featured classic Star Wars characters including Darth Vader, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, C3P0, Princess Leia, Ben Kenobi, etc. '''Akon PixFusion Willie Nelson Features This site, like most others, came with some special features/settings: Sharing via outside Social Networks The site currently allows certain users to export their videos to certain sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, and several others. Video Monetization/Commercialization One with a business account can monetize their videos. Certain business users could advertise with GoAnimate videos. Upgrading to plans As stated before, basic users have the privilege to upgrade to certain plans for a price. One prior to January 2015 upgrade had the opportunity to upgrade his/her account to a premium/non-commercial plan known as GoPlus (though purchasing new plans were discontinued due to a sharp decline in popularity). Others however, could upgrade to the following business plans; GoPublish, GoPremium, and GoTeam (including collaboration on videos with other GoTeam users). Agency/School related plans GoAnimate has even offered federal agencies and school districts across the United States to purchase and subscribe to the aforementioned business plans. The GoAnimate for Schools plans usually range from around US$200-300 depending on how many students attend the classroom of the one subscribing. These offers are voided in nations outside the US unfortunately. Profile Settings Here a user could add a channel description, username, and profile pic (like most sites). Other personal settings * Users could change their e-mail addresses via the GoAnimate support center. * Users could cancel a setting known as auto-renewal (which renews a user's GoPlus/Business plan for USD $6.00 per month) * A user could freely subscribe to the GoAnimate newsletter. * You could enable Email alerts to have GoAnimate notify/inform you about anything (including followers, comments, videos, blogs, forums, other users' videos you might have shared, etc.) * One could obivously change their password (in case of emergencies such as incidents involving hackers or incidents similar to the Heartbleed virus outbreak). * Users could also change user activity settings. Character Creators and Video Makers As the title implies, one has the ability to access premium-video makers and characters creators. Video Makers One user could decide whether his/her video should be made using the template video maker or the full/premium video maker. The template maker provides few backgrounds, voices, and up to 10 (30 when upgraded to GoPlus or Business) lines of dialogue. The full-video maker provides hundreds of backgrounds, thousands of default props (users could upload more), nearly a hundred special effects, a wide gallery of default characters (when upgraded to GoPlus or Business) and the ability to access more voices, more animations and poses, and create videos without any duration limits (in other words, your videos could run as long as you want). Character Creators Certain themes (including Lil' Peepz, Comedy World, Anime, Chibi Peepz, and others) enable users to create their own custom characters/avatars. Prior to October 2013, the amount of characters that could be created depended solely on the amount of GoBucks a user had. The more accessories a character had, the more GoBucks you'd had to pay. A user with a free plan prior to that year had the ability to create one free character (no others can be created until the user upgraded to a GoPlus/Business plan). As of October 2013 however, the GoBucks system discontinued and once a user subcribed to GoAnimate (under GoPlus or Business), that user was granted an opportunity to create unlimited amounts of characters without paying any extra fees. The Logo The current logo is comprised of the words "Go" (in orange bold, italic font) and "Animate" (in grey italic font). Alvin Hung has not yet made clear of the true meaning behind the font and/or color choices of the logo. Some may assume that this symbolizes creativity or the boundless of one's inner imagination. Impact Here are two contrasting perspectives related to GoAnimate's reputation Critical Acclaim from Industries and Hobbyists The site has left an everlasting impact on the world of web-animation. It was praised and applauded for its versatile video maker, convenient features, and smooth assets by The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Mashable, Wired, etc. Industry experts have also applauded this site's platform. These include Joe Ganci of Learning Solutions Magazine ("When I finally did try GoAnimate, what I found blew me away!" - Joe Ganci; Courtesy of elearningjoe.com), Lee LeFever, Founder of CommonCraft ("GoAnimate's platform has made it easy and affordable for anyone to create animated videos." -Lee LeFever), and J. Peter Bruzzese, Author for InfoWorld ("Check out GoAnimate to learn how to easily build and use animated videos." -J. Peter Bruzzese). GoAnimate has also received countless respect from regular customers within the industry and even the general Hobbyist communities. Panning from Flash animators Well with that said, GoAnimate also has left an everlasting negative impact within the Flash Animation community. Many Flash animators have despised and ridiculed GoAnimate for plagiarism, measly assets, cheap drag-and-drop features, and of course, the grounded video craze. Many have been given the title "GoHater" and are mostly prominent in YouTube. Popular British indie Flash animator Harry Partridge released a video around 2011 parodying the site's assets and features entitled "Go!Animate: An Animation Revolution". Fan Websites The site's vast members would later on launch their own fan-sites devoted to their love or interest of GoAnimate, its assets, features, tools, characters, animations, and video-related forums: Social Media *GoHobbyist (administered by Boards.net) *Tigrus879 Animations (administered by Weebly) *Rockstar Animations (the website) Wikis *GoAnipedia (formerly GoAnimate Wiki) *GoAnimate Extended Wiki (formerly GoAnimate V2 Wiki; meant to serve as the preceding wiki's successor; both remain active somehow) *GoAnimate V3 Wiki *Karael Wiki *Tigrus879 GoAnimate Wiki *Chibi Specials Wiki *WikiAnimate *New WikiAnimate Gallery Link to the gallery: High res logo notag nomouse1.png 206e2 goanimate.jpg 0.jpg Wiki-background Go animate.png Goanimate.jpg GoAnimate (1).jpg Go31.jpg GoAnimate WikiDashboard2.jpg Images.jpg Lil Peepz.jpg New-TOS-Characters-on-GoAnimate-com-star-trek-movies-6545617-1500-1150.jpg Category:Sites Category:Websites Category:Animation Software Category:GoAnimate